Hills Come Second to Hard-running Whitecraigs

This was a desperately disappointing start to the NL2 league season at Hughenden for the “Hills” who were soundly beaten by their Glasgow rivals, Whitecraigs, by two goals and four tries to one penalty goal, the visitors neatly scoring seventeen points in each half. There were only rare occasions of parity for “Hills”. An opening five minute spell of good running continuity rugby saw stand off, Clement Tranier, open the scoring with a well struck penalty goal, but that seemed to stir the visitors into action rather than encourage the “Hills”. Poor, sloppy work from “Hills” on the touchline frequently gifted possession to the visitors, whose ball carrying particularly by their biggish forwards caused problems all game. Hills scrummage platform was better, but poor fringe defence on the visitors put-in allowed Whitecraigs to break the line with impunity and provide decent passages of high quality continuity rugby.

The structure of the game was dictated by the visitors and, as such, the home team were restricted to bursts from individuals rather than a fast recycling game. Captain Calum Stove, Owen Gemmell and Alec Cameron all carried well and defensively were sound, while Jimmy Griffith on the wing was always a handful for the visitors when he received the ball in open space. Scrum half Ross Thomson, on his return to the side battled manfully both in attack and defence and replacement Carlos “Canary” Celsis, sporting the brightest yellow scrum cap the crowd had ever seen, buzzed around with considerable menace and was the catalyst for the occasional bursts of “Hills” attacking play.

The “Hills” squad will wish to expunge this game from their memory banks at the earliest opportunity and turn their attention to preparing to meet the high flying Cartha Queens park squad at Dumbreck on Saturday the 10th September, kick off 15.00